How education has become virtualized: a French point of view of distance education

Xiao, Y and Marquet, P
Universitˆm Louis Pasteur
Strasbourg, France

The emergence and development of distance learning is always linked to the evolution of information and communication technology (ICT): whenever a new technology is used in the the media and for the transmission of information, it gives rise to a new model of distance learning. This paper does not intend to repeat the considerable research on taxonomies of distance education ideologies and institutional providers, but instead to examine how the learning environment has become virtual, in the sense of 'dematerialization' and access to resources belonging to virtual communities of learners.

The paper begins by reporting briefly on the history of distance learning, from its emergence as the mail service developed quickly in the 19th century to its computerization in the 21st century. Depending on the combination of ICT and distance learning, and because of the evolving ways of transmitting knowledge, three phases are identified in this long period -- paper, mass media and digital -- with the movement from one phase to the next taking less and less time: from more than 100 years for the first phase, to several decades for the second, to a dozen years for the third. Over this period, the technology has developed from simple to complex, and the media from unitary to diverse. When a new technique appears, it is assimilated into distance learning and adapted as necessary; and when this distance learning model is unable to adapt to some new development, the model has to be changed to accommodate it, with some elements being eliminated, reduced in emphasis or replaced by another new technique. Of course, technology and the media have not been developed especially for the purpose of distance learning -- they are applied to assist learning -- but without them, distance learning cannot be implemented. Finally, it is argued that the history of distance learning in France supports the view that the standard for judging whether a new technique can be combined with distance learning is whether it can promote the personalization of learning at a distance.